He earned international recognition two years ago as a personal trainer. But these days, John Sinclair (johnsinclair.ca) sees himself as more of a coach.

“You’re a life coach,” he says by phone from South Florida. “You’re basically coaching people in their habits and their behaviours.”

Sinclair, 37, was one of 10 finalists in 2012 for the title of “Personal Trainer to Watch,” as part of an annual contest — run by U.S.-based commercial fitness equipment manufacturer Life Fitness — designed to honour the best and brightest personal trainers on the planet.

The list of finalists, which included trainers from the U.S., United Kingdom and Australia, was culled from nearly 1,000 nominees.

Sinclair was working for World Health Edmonton at the time.

The native of Lucky Lake, Sask., has since joined the Midtown Athletic Club in Weston, Fla., where he’s serving as master performance coach/fitness director and hoping to help further push the evolution of personal training.

As Sinclair has come to realize, there’s already a lot more to “personal training” than exercise.

“If it was just about exercise, no one would need a trainer because there’s so much information out there,” explains the former athletic therapist who puts the “personal” in personal training.

“We’re actually in the people business. We’re not in the exercise business. This is about building relationships and that’s what coaching is all about is being able to build a relationship and being able to enhance that relationship through exercise and through being a good friend to people that value you, that spend a lot of time with you.”

A lot of time, indeed.

Sinclair notes that he had clients at World Health Edmonton who stuck with him for the long haul, training one-on-one three days a week for more than 10 years.

“They did that because of the relationships we built with one another,” he says. “It wasn’t really about the exercise. Most of them actually hated to exercise. But they had a good time coming and sharing their day and sharing their experience and learning a little bit about themselves. That’s what was truly special about it.”

And that’s what Sinclair is focusing on as he continues to strive to leave his imprint on the ever-evolving fitness industry.

“If we want to make this industry really big, we need to start marketing to the 89% of people that don’t actually use a gym, and to those people that just need wellness in their life and not necessarily fitness,” he adds. “I think fitness has almost taken a negative spin because it’s been about beauty and weight loss and really it’s not necessarily about health anymore.”

Sinclair, a faculty member with both the Institute of Motion and PTA Global, often lectures about the origin of the term “fitness.” Based on his research, he has traced it as far back as 19th-century naturalist and geologist Charles Darwin.

“But he (Darwin) just called it fit. And fit just meant you were part of an ecological group, you were part of a social belonging that allowed you to be able to continue on this planet. You fit where you were at,” he notes. “I think fitness has gotten away from that in that it’s not a socially connected group. It’s become too individualistic. So I’m excited about creating programming based on social aspects and creating those little clans, those little groups and community again. If we can tap into that, then we’re going to be able to start changing lives for sure.”

Sinclair, whose own personal regimen varies daily and ranges from Olympic weightlifting and sprinting to tennis and swimming, estimates he has spent $20,000 in the past four years on his ongoing training education.

“I knew that if I wanted to get to a higher level and be a better coach, I had to learn from the best,” he adds. “So I travelled around and learned from a lot of great coaches and great people in the industry and put myself in a position where I really had to know my stuff and be a better presenter and educator.”

Sinclair, a fit 175 pounds at five-foot-four, says the “ability to adapt on the fly” is perhaps the most crucial characteristic for any performance coach or trainer to possess.

“Your programming can be a template, but it can’t be the end-all and be-all of what you do,” he says.

“The real art of the personal training or the coaching world is to actually be able to adapt that program to give clients the load that their body can tolerate that day with the amount of stress people are carrying — mental, physical, emotional, spiritual. You name it, people are bringing us a level of stress that we have to be able to balance and so I try to keep things really simple. My goal is to make you feel better when you left than you felt when you came in.”